The Hidden Aesthetics: A Critical History of the Aesthetics of Arabic Calligraphy

This lecture was delivered at the Fujairah School of Calligraphy and Ornament. What follows is a structured record of its main themes, allowing the lecture to be read as a text alongside watching it in full in the video above.

Opening Remarks

The lecture opened by highlighting the importance of the “art criticism of Arabic calligraphy”: the field concerned with analyzing and evaluating the aesthetic and artistic aspects of this art, which reflects a cultural and historical depth of great extent.

The lecture aims to offer a new reading of Arabic calligraphy that brings out its expression of the unique Islamic and aesthetic values, away from absolute dependence on the Western and Orientalist standards of classification, which dealt with Islamic art from an external perspective that does not reflect its reality as an art standing in its own right.

Theme One: What Is the “Critical History”?

The term “critical history” refers to the study and analysis of the evolution of ideas, concepts, and theories over time from a critical perspective. The foundations of this concept may be summarized in the following points:

1. Historical examination: the existence of a historical vessel that governs ideas and arts.
2. Criticism and analysis: the human process that differs according to the researcher’s culture.
3. Evaluating influences and contexts: understanding how script appeared in a given region and how it was shaped by its context.
4. Tracking changes and divergent concepts: following the aesthetic transformations across the ages.
5. Examining the tools and methods of criticism: reviewing the approaches used in reading the art.

Theme Two: Methodologies for Reading the History of Arabic Calligraphy

To understand the aesthetics of Arabic calligraphy and its evolution, the lecturer proposed relying on two complementary approaches:

1. The approach of surveying ancient monuments and manuscripts: to understand the development of the scripts (from Kufic to Naskh and Thuluth) and the effect of the cultural and social environment on these transformations.
2. The approach of philosophical-aesthetic analysis: studying the philosophies and creative sciences of each period, and how the intellectual currents contributed to shaping the arts.

Theme Three: The Crisis of Art Criticism in Arabic Calligraphy

The lecturer pointed to a great gap in the Arabic library: while it teems with books on “literary criticism,” it is severely lacking in specialized critical works on Arabic calligraphy. The crisis is embodied in:

• The deficient view: attempting to read Arabic calligraphy through the theories of Western “modern art” (such as Cubism or Expressionism), which led to the eclipse of the authentic culture of calligraphy and ornament.
• The problems of translation: the translation of many foreign books (whether from English or Persian) at the hands of translators not specialized in the art of calligraphy, leading to the absence of precise artistic terminology and the distortion of knowledge.
• Stereotyped stagnation: relying on model-copybooks of scripts (such as Bada’iʿ al-Khatt al-ʿArabi) in a traditional manner devoid of critical analysis, which led to a kind of “historical dependency.”

Theme Four: The Authentic Sources for a Critical Foundation

To build a genuine criticism of Arabic calligraphy, one must return to the primary sources and read them with a critical eye, including:

1. The early Qur’anic codices: reading the diversity of the “Hijazi/Madani script” in the codices of the first century (such as the Birmingham codex and the Sana’a codices), and understanding how the copyists dealt with the text with individuality and distinction.
2. Early tombstones: they constitute an authentic source for reading the individual artistic and aesthetic development of the calligraphers in the first three centuries (such as the tombstones of Mubarak al-Makki).
3. The heritage manuscripts of the calligraphers: such as re-reading the aesthetics of the manuscripts of Ibn Muqla, Ibn al-Bawwab, and Yaqut al-Mustaʿsimi (and taking care not to confuse what they wrote as calligraphers with what they composed as authors).
4. The historical encyclopedias: benefiting from encyclopedias such as Ṣubḥ al-Aʿshā by al-Qalqashandi, which is a historical source of great importance for the artistic reading of script.

Theme Five: Mindsets, Intellectual Currents, and Their Effect on Script

Arabic calligraphy did not develop in isolation from the ideas prevailing in society; the various “mindsets” influenced the composition of the calligraphic panel:

• Sufism: clearly influenced the calligraphic designs (such as the use of the Ghubari script in writing miniature codices of high spirituality, the designs of banners, and mirror-image writings).
• Modernity and Hurufism: manifested in the use of the letter as a plastic element. The lecturer affirmed that acceptable innovation is that which builds upon a “root and rooting” of the letter (as in the experiments of Wissam Shawkat, Jassem Meraj, and Ahmed Fares), and not the random abstraction that distorts visual taste.

Highlights from the Questions and Interventions Session

• The intervention of Dr. Nassar (the problem of terminology): he pointed to the necessity of replacing the term “Hijazi script” with “Madani script,” since the former is an Orientalist term that arose in the nineteenth century, and stressed the danger of non-specialist translations that harm the art more than they benefit it. (The lecturer responded that he uses the common term provisionally, until the publication of the academic research that establishes the new term.)
• A question about the term “modern art” in calligraphy: one attendee asked how valid the term “modern” is for an art that began many years ago (such as Hurufism). The lecturer clarified that modernity is an evolving and continuous concept, and that schools renew themselves with the additions of contemporary artists, provided that modernity is built upon an understanding of the roots of the letter.
• The intervention of the master calligrapher Muthanna al-Obeidi (criticism of the letter versus criticism of the panel): he explained that criticism in Arabic calligraphy divides into two branches: criticism of “the form of the letter and its anatomy” (which is closed among specialist calligraphers and about which no criticism directed at the public has been written), and criticism of “the composition or the modern panel” (which relies on material, color, and structure). The lecturer affirmed this division, explaining that his lecture aims to lay the “knowledge and historical foundation” upon which criticism of both branches can be built.
• An intervention on the pre-Islamic scripts (Jazm, Thamudic, Nabataean): one participant pointed to the importance of mentioning the scripts preceding Islam. The lecturer agreed with their historical and archaeological importance, but clarified that the “pivotal turning point” that generated the momentum and founded the “civilization of the pen” occurred with the advent of Islam and the revelation of the Qur’an, when the Arab mind shifted from an “oral” mentality to a “documentary, written” one in just fifty years.

Conclusion of the Session

The lecture concluded with thanks to the Fujairah School of Calligraphy and Ornament, affirming the need for academics, historians, and artists to join efforts to produce an authentic Arabic critical library befitting the standing of Arabic calligraphy and its history, and correcting the course of its evaluation locally and globally.